


Experimentation

by stitchcasual



Series: Kiss Me Like You Mean It [5]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: I'm honestly shit at tags, Kralla's Song, M/M, Reyes and Ryder try out new booze drinks, Reyes is adorable, Scott is introspective, Umi makes an appearance, no real intense spoilers I don't think, set pre-Karada-nonsense, so do Drack and Jaal, some work better than others
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 02:44:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11026959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchcasual/pseuds/stitchcasual
Summary: Reyes and Scott hit the bar for some off-hours experimentation with the drinks at Kralla's Song. It doesn't go as planned, but they manage to salvage the evening.





	Experimentation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beetle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/gifts).



> Super cute fluffy fill for my favorite bug <3
> 
> Prompt 16 (when one person's face is scrunched up and the other one kisses their lips/nose/forehead)

“Of all the gin joints…”

Reyes groans. “Please do not. Again.”

Scott grins as the neon, or whatever space equivalent, sign for Kralla’s Song beams down on them in the early twilight. He jogs forward a fast step to draw even to his lover and slip an arm around his waist, looking askance at Reyes’ profile, grin morphing into a smirk as his eyes trace the line of his nose to the curve of his wicked lips which had so recently been stretched around his—

He trips on the first step down into the bar and has a fleeting moment of panic when it seems Reyes might not catch him… But he does, rolling his eyes and muttering something under his breath.

“Mm, what was that?” Scott asks, checking his footing on the stairs before proceeding.

“Just...continuously in awe of your many facets.”

Scott snorts but doesn’t say anything in return until they make it to their corner table, the one next to both walls with windows. He nods to Drack and raises a hand in greeting to Jaal who, despite his complaints about the place, still hasn’t managed to find somewhere else he’d rather hang out.

“Start light,” he calls as Reyes peels away to get them drinks from Umi. The last time they’d come here, fresh from some fight or another out in the Badlands, Reyes had ordered the human version of whatever Umi was making for Drack. Even Scott’s biotic metabolism hadn’t saved him from that one, and he’d come to in his quarters onboard the Tempest, dropped in an ungainly heap atop Reyes. He’d heard Drack’s chuckle through the closed doors. Never again...at least not if he could help it.

He sniffs suspiciously at the glass Reyes sets in front of him.

“It is a boring ale,” Reyes informs him with a somewhat disappointed air and places a hand over his heart when Scott raises a dubious eyebrow. “My word as a gentleman.”

Scott laughs at that and takes a drink. It is indeed an ale and yeah, boring is a pretty good descriptor for the flavor and body, or lack thereof. He grimaces and Reyes shakes a finger at him.

“You said light. You get what you ask for.” Reyes winks. A true enough statement, Scott supposes, that covers more than just ordering at the bar. Reyes is...well, let it never be said that Reyes has ever not given Scott Ryder  _ exactly _ what he asked for.

“Tell me what you meant earlier,” Scott says when he’s nearly choked down the ale and is considering his next drink options. Reyes gives him a curious eyebrow, and Scott sighs and rolls the hand not wrapped around his glass. “You know, something about facets.”

Reyes laughs, bright and short, and throws back the rest of his ale. “I was remarking upon your situational lack of spacial awareness.” Scott rolls his hand again. “You are a force on the battlefield, Ryder; you see everything that goes on, each obstacle and each opportunity. It is truly impressive. But put you next to a beautiful man and a set of stairs?” He shakes his head.

Scott buries his face in what little remains of his drink and scowls. “You’re distracting.”

“And a hoard of kett are not?”

“No? It’s completely different.”

Reyes laughs again and stretches out in his chair as Scott gets up to grab the next round. It’s what passes for a Friday night on Kadara, even though it’s still Tuesday if he’s going by the Nexus standard calendar. It’s what they use onboard the Tempest, but observing the local calendar is something Scott tries to do, one way to make himself a little less of an outsider wherever he lands. He can’t say that it’s working, but at least it allows him two Fridays in a week, on the pleasant occasions it works out like that. And sometimes his Fridays even include that man. Frequently infuriating but never dull, and Scott knows the same could be and has been said about him. Usually by Sara.

He turns back to their table when he reaches the bar, setting their empty glasses down on it. Reyes wiggles his fingers at him then returns to whatever business he’s conducting on his omni-tool. Always doing something. Umi rolls her eyes at the smile on his face when he looks at her and sends him back to his seat with something else they haven’t had before that’s a few steps stronger than the ale. Turns out Umi’s OK with crafting new concoctions just as long as you help a little and don’t ever use the phrase “surprise me.” Or any variation of the word “surprise.” Scott and Reyes have been taking advantage of this whenever possible, though Scott doesn’t make it to Kadara near as often as he would like, what with everyone’s hopes and dreams riding on the only Pathfinder.

He exhales heavily as he sets the drinks down, the liquor in one glass sloshing over the rim, and he curses, lifting his hand to wipe it off on his pants when Reyes captures it, his tongue darting out to lick the falling droplets from Scott’s fingers.

“Something the matter?” Reyes asks when he’s cleaned the fingers he still holds in his hands.

“Not anymore,” Scott breathes, his ice blue eyes not leaving Reyes’ warm brown.

“Somehow I do not think I am that distracting.” Reyes picks up his glass with his other hand, taps the bottom of his to the top of Scott’s still sitting on the table, and drinks, maintaining that eye contact. Scott groans and resists the urge to slam his head against the table, opting instead to drain half his glass in a single long pull.

“Don’t get serious on me, damn it, Vidal.” 

The drink is strong, though probably only in relation to the swill they just had, and he feels it sifting through his head like fine sand. It could also have something to do with how much he just drank at once. He cushions his forehead in his hand and stares at the point where the table disappears and Reyes’ torso begins. He  _ should _ be paying attention to the bar, to the patrons around them. Any one of them could have a reason for wanting him dead: he hasn’t exactly made a lot of friends on Kadara with his “all of you are fucking stupid” policy and refusal to take any side at all, other than the side his Tempest crew is standing on. But, he figures, Reyes is in much better shape than he is right now, so he can keep a lookout. That and both Drack and Jaal are nearby. For any would-be assassin to make it all the way to him, they’d have to be something truly special. He’d probably try to hire them, if he made it out alive.

“One of us has to be, occasionally. I promise not to make a habit of it.” Reyes smirks, leaning his cheek on the back of his hand even as he still holds his glass.

Scott feels some of his frustration bleed out of him at that face, and he huffs lightly, picking up his own glass and swirling the drink around. He’s careful to not spill though. Much as he really didn’t mind Reyes’ method of cleaning up, and much as he doesn’t mind the fact that their hands are still linked there on the table, the thought of wasting good, scratch that, decent booze is just abhorrent to him. Kralla’s Song might be classier than that dive Reyes usually hangs out in, but the booze is still a little shitty. It’s like...nothing tastes quite right in Andromeda, even if it came from the Milky Way with them.

He misses it, home, during those times when he stands still enough that his regrets catch up with him. He tries not to let them, and usually succeeds, though sometimes a wave of nostalgia will overtake him out of nowhere. That typically only happens with Sara, any time the two of them take more than fifteen minutes together in their hectic schedules to re-establish familial ties. Luckily for him that doesn’t happen very often. Luckily? Maybe. He does miss her when he’s out flying from one end of Andromeda to the other and sometimes feels jealous that she has a stable position on the Nexus doing...well, whatever it is she does, he honestly hasn’t tried to understand it. He knows it’s important, though, and that she isn’t quite as subject to the whims of every single citizen of this new galaxy like he is. He tries not to be bitter about it.

“Well, if it brings you down that much, I can stop being serious immediately.”

Scott drags his eyes from the table and up to Reyes’ face, who’s looking at him with, is that concern? Ah, he’s been thinking for too long again.

“Sorry.”

Reyes squeezes his hand. “The couple at the next table over,” he jerks his head their direction, “have been having the most  _ delicious _ attempted break-up conversation.” And he tugs on Scott’s hand to pull him closer over the table and lays out the scene so far. It isn’t like Scott particularly cares that the people over there are in the middle of a Personal Situation but Reyes knows how to distract him quite well, and leaning close and watching his lips move as he tells a story is one of the best ways to get Scott’s mind off other things. He stares, losing himself in the mesmerizing way those lips form words, and Reyes smiles fondly at him, pressing his fingertips lightly against Scott’s temple before he gets up to trade in their glasses for something new to drink.

Scott sits quietly until Reyes returns, his mind, for now, happily blank. But the drink is...smoking?

“Uh… Is that safe?” He turns his head, side-eyeing the glass Reyes sets in front of him.

“My dear Pathfinder, since when are you worried about safety?”

Scott glares at Reyes. “Since it goes in my damn stomach.” Just because the first thing he does after sizing up a battlefield is to charge straight at the strongest enemy doesn’t mean he deserves this kind of shade from his boyfriend. It’s strategic, anyway. He pouts, just a little, to get Reyes’ eyes to soften and his hand to reach out to ruffle Scott’s hair. It is almost frightening how easy it is to move Reyes into a gesture of affection, and if he didn’t know better, he’d think he was truly manipulating Reyes. But he does know better, know that Reyes is startlingly dedicated to him, surprisingly sweet and vulnerable when he lets himself show it. 

No, the only thing that actually frightens Scott is the feeling that he’s fallen hard for an exile smuggler. One that does some work for the Resistance, true, but also one that he doesn’t completely trust.  _ Can’t  _ completely trust because you can’t completely trust  _ anyone _ on Kadara, certainly not handsome, smooth-talking liars. He’d like to, though, damn but he would like to. At least the sex is good.

All of that does not negate the fact that there is a smoking beverage in front of him that Reyes has not actually assured him is safe to drink. He sighs and picks it up, sniffing cautiously. 

“You know Drack will murder you if this kills me, right?”

Reyes laughs and crashes his glass against Scott’s. “Just drink.”

“Murder,” Scott says, before closing his eyes and doing as he’s told.

The drink is horrible, and that’s putting it lightly. He’s not sure this isn’t at least one part rocket fuel, like actual fuel for rockets, and something in this tastes like what Drack has described to him as ryncol.  _ Not a safe drink, Reyes. _ His whole face wrinkles up and he feels fairly certain that he’s going to vomit.  _ Oh god, not in the middle of the bar. _ He reaches out for Reyes, and his hand connects with the reassuring solidity of Reyes’ shoulder sooner than he thought it would.

“The mighty Pathfinder,” Reyes murmurs, suddenly close enough that Scott can feel his presence even though his eyes are still screwed shut tight. A kiss lands on his forehead.

“Laid low.” Another kiss to the tip of his nose.

“By a drink.” A final kiss to his lips, and he can feel Reyes’ breathy chuckle against his face. He grips Reyes’ shoulder tightly as he groans and sways in his chair, and finds himself pulled out of it and gently manhandled through the bar. Drack’s amused laugh follows him up the stairs.

“Wasn’t a drink,” he protests, unable to get his feet under him quite right as they pass through the door. “Was a bomb.”

“A bomb?” Another chuckle from Reyes.

“Yes,” Scott asserts. He pitches forward into a wall, only Reyes’ intervention preventing him from smashing his head. He leans against it, trying to take deep breaths through his mouth. “Pretty sure you could blow something up with that.” The air outside the bar is doing wonders for his head, and though he won’t ever forget how that drink felt going down, the taste is fading from his mouth and that’s something at least.

When he blinks his eyes open, Reyes is leaning against the wall next to him, still holding on to him. Those brown eyes are so close, and Scott looks up into them, lips parting slightly. Reyes grins and moves closer until his lips brush against the tip of Scott’s nose again.

“How about we take you to your quarters, Pathfinder? I would feel a lot better if we put some distance between you and that bomb.”

“Ha ha.” But he allows Reyes to again take the bulk of his weight, though he’s sure he could walk mostly unassisted at this point, and steer them toward the Tempest. After all, it isn’t every day he gets fussed over by a gorgeous man, a gorgeous man who, if he’s not mistaken, has designs on his person once they make it back to the ship. Scott’s absolutely OK with this and leans his head against Reyes’ shoulder, closing his eyes again. He can, at least, trust Reyes to get him to the bedroom.

**Author's Note:**

> My first Andromeda work! There will be more to come with this Ryder and Reyes because damn but they grew on me after this prompt.
> 
> Catch me on the [tumblr](http://stitchcasual.tumblr.com) where I take prompts and post about a smorgasbord of fun things.


End file.
